applicable to the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. It
could not therefore be valid without further action in the Ukrainian
Soviet Republic which was, by hypothesis, a completely independent
and sovereign state. Yet so closely knit together was the fate of the
Ukrainian Communist Party with that of Russia that it was not necessary
for the Ukrainian Soviet regime to issue immediately any new decree on
the subject. It was automatically assumed that it was equally binding
in Ukraine and without any further ado, the Ukrainian peasants were
given the right of selling any surplus products exactly as if there had
been no independent Ukrainian Soviet government.
The legal aspects of this decree did not interest the bulk of the
Ukrainian peasants. They saw only the relief which it afforded them and
the opportunities that it gave. They immediately took advantage of it,
and its first effects were to be seen in a surprisingly short time. Of
course, there could be no improvement in the national well-being until
the harvest and the harvest of 1921 was again reduced by drought, so
that with the best of intentions, it was not until 1922 that conditions
began to improve.
A new Russian land code was finally adopted on March 3, 1921, and it
was, of course, the model to be observed in the Ukraine. Yet this did
not suppress the discontent of the Ukrainian peasants.
In an effort to suppress this smouldering discontent, D. Manuilsky,
who was then the Commissar for Agriculture of the All-Ukrainian
Revolutionary Committee (the revolutionary centre and the provisional
government of the country), summoned to Kharkiv a gathering of
agronomists from all parts of Ukraine in the First All-Ukrainian
Agronomical Congress. He found the more than one thousand present
practically united in their assertions that the agricultural laws
as developed by the Bolsheviks were inapplicable to the Ukraine.
They had been drawn up and approved on March 6, 1919 and they were
entirely based on the spirit of the Russian land commune which provided
usually for a redistribution of the land every three years, with
the supplemental provision that the redistribution should take into
account the number of persons in each family. This was all very good
when it agreed, as it did in Russia, with the general spirit of the
people who were vitally interested in the commune as such. Conditions
were different in Ukraine and the purely artificial Land Society was
developed. Of course, all the peasants had to become members but the
land was divided by households rather than on an individual basis.
Furthermore, it was provided in the Ukrainian Code that “The right to
land handed over for labor use is without term and can be taken away
only in accordance with the provisions of the law.” This insured the
individual household in possession of its own piece of land and made it
possible for the more industrious to undertake the improvement of the
soil.
By the time that the final form of the Labor Code was established on
November 22, 1922, it had become almost essentially different from
the Russian Code, although it paid a lip service to the principle of
nationalization through the actions of the Land Societies. A further
sign of submission was the establishment of maximums on landholding. No
household in the densely settled areas could have more than fourteen
hectares or, in the less thickly populated areas, forty-eight hectares.
The Land Society had the right to decide on the form of exploitation
of the land to be carried out but if a family disagreed with the form
established, it was entitled to demand the same amount of land but not
necessarily the same land that it had contributed. Furthermore, outside
of the requirement that all members of household were compelled to
labor personally on the land, the provisions dealing with hired labor
and the renting of land were left purposely vague or were omitted for
further study.
The new code, which was more liberal than that in Russia, was devised
in the interests of the landless peasants and also the poor and middle
peasants, and definitely ratified the seizure of the estates of the
large landowners. Sixty-eight per cent of the landless peasants
received small tracts of land and fifty-two percent of those with
holdings from two to four hectares were settled under more favorable
conditions, or received additional land. On the other hand, 27.2% of
those with more than sixteen hectares, the normal holding, and 56.8%
of those with more than twenty-five hectares, saw their additional
land removed and handed over to their less fortunate neighbors. In a
sense this might seem to have been a solution of the crying need of the
peasants for land but it brought with it some unexpected results.
The civil war had completely destroyed any free capital, and without
capital the peasants could not buy the tools, the fertilizers, etc.,
which they needed to prosper. This made little difference in the very
beginning, for at the moment the primary need was for food and the
peasants were compelled to live upon what they could raise. It was not
long before the returning prosperity commenced new differentiations
in the villages. The poorer peasants began to take advantage of the
provisions that they could lease their newly acquired land, and while
the Russian law provided that a lease could run for only three years,
the Ninth All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets soon lengthened this term
to 13 years and liberalized the laws for hired labor.
The result was that by 1926, the poor peasants had leased 1,181,000
hectares and 53.9% of the peasants who had at least ten hectares rented
additional land.
In a word, under the New Economic Policy conditions began, in fact, to
return to what had been the situation prior to the revolution, with
the exception that the great land owners had disappeared, but as they
had been largely Russian or Polish, their departure only increased the
Ukrainian influence in the villages and made them more homogeneous than
they had been before.
The Commissariat of Agriculture endeavored during these years of
reconstruction to maintain as independent a position as possible. It
established its own independent services, its own research stations
which were concerned with Ukrainian agricultural problems, its own
breeding stations and its own bureaus for study and development of the
various branches of agriculture, and it did its best to separate these
from the similar services directed by Moscow and not concerned with the
particular problems of Ukraine.
The peasants responded to this with their own efforts. In 1922, with
the famine still raging, they secured permission from Moscow to
establish the so-called Selo-Pomich (or Village Aid) to provide credit
for the peasants. This finally persuaded the Cheka to hand over part of
the golden objects which they had stolen from the churches, and it used
the capital thus secured to buy seed corn in America. It then loaned
this to the peasants and when the harvest came, the loan was repaid in
kind and more credit was then extended.
The peasants also revived and breathed new life into the cooperatives
which had been broken up during the period of Militant Communism.
In 1923 they established another cooperative organization, the
Selo-Tekhnyka (Village Machines) which purchased more expensive
agricultural machinery and rented it out to the peasants for the
appropriate agricultural work. These points became the centre of
mechanization and were in effect the first tractor stations. In 1924
they established the First Agricultural Bank, a sort of private
institution which at one time had more loans outstanding than had the
Ukrainian State Bank which was, of course, closely supervised by Moscow.
All these efforts met with marked success and agriculture speedily
began to revive. The peasants became more prosperous and their holdings
of livestock rapidly increased, although they did not reach the pre-war
level. This, in its turn, created a new demand for manufactured
products and restored the factories to operation, and with them the
conditions in the cities began to improve.
Similar concessions were made to industry, but with one important
difference. The larger and more important industrial plants were
not turned back to their former owners who were, as before, allowed
no voice or influence in their direction. They were taken from the
workers who had seized and abused them during the period of Militant
Communism and placed under the supervision of government trusts. These
were either regional in character or confined to a single branch of
industry. In either case, they were under the control of a more or
less trusted group of men among whom Communists were in the leading
positions, but while they received certain credits from the state,
they were more or less autonomous and they were allowed to go through
regular commercial transactions and encouraged to show profits in their
annual reports. There was thus again a source of encouragement both
for the directors and the workers, and slowly but surely the level of
industry began to rise.
The smaller plants were very often leased to individuals who were
allowed to employ hired labor and the hope was given to these that
their taxes would be at such a level that they, too, could show
profits. The very small shops and plants were in some cases taken back
by their former owners when they had survived and any provisions about
the use of hired labor were tacitly forgotten in the first flush of the
New Economic Policy.
All of these measures were interpreted by the great mass of the
Ukrainian people as a recognition of the validity of human experience.
There were, of course, keen realists who gave full credence to the
declarations of Lenin that the Soviets had never wavered in their
objections and were using these concessions only as a means of reviving
the life of the country and strengthening their own position. At first
this did not seem to be true and it was only as conditions really
settled down and a semblance of prosperity returned that it became
possible to note the steadily increasing pressure which the government
exerted.
In the same way the currency reforms were not without their own
influence. In 1923 the government introduced a new currency, the
chervonets, which was ostensibly based on a gold standard, to take
the place of the old depreciated paper. Nevertheless, the latter was
allowed to circulate in the rural districts with the result that its
value continued to fall and it became more and more difficult for the
peasants to satisfy their needs for manufactured goods which were
priced in the new currency. This produced the so-called “scissors,” for
with the restoration of industry, the value of manufactures continued
to rise, while the prices of agricultural products continually fell.
The political system was still not clear. The new regulations
were introduced in the Council of Commissars in Moscow and it was
emphatically stated that they were for the Russian Soviet Federated
Socialist Republic, but Ukraine and also the other Soviet Republics put
into practice the same resolutions, often without any decree by the
ostensibly independent government.
The key to this enigma lay in the nature of Communist discipline. In
theory and on paper the Soviet regime was thoroughly democratic in the
broad sense of the word. There was an elaborate scheme of elections
to the village and the higher Soviets, and even though this was
weighted very heavily to provide increased representation for the city
proletariat where the Communists felt themselves strongest, it was
always possible to defend the system.
Yet this does not tell the full story, for though non-party men were
elected to the lower and local Soviets, the number of Communists
increased steadily in the higher. These Communists were themselves
classified as members of the Ukrainian branch of the Russian Communist
Party and they were bound by party discipline to obey all the
instructions given by the Executive Committee of the Russian Communist
Party.
There was thus, in reality, two governments in both Ukraine and the
Russian Republic. There was first the republic government theoretically
responsible to the people and thus transmitting the wishes of the
people upward, even though the highest republic authorities were
the direct appointees of Moscow. There was likewise the domination,
more or less veiled, of the Communist Party, a government which only
transmitted instructions from the top down. In the early days, and
indeed for a considerable period, it is often difficult to determine
whether certain measures came into effect because they had been
approved by the Council of Commissars in Moscow or because they had
the backing of the Executive Committee of the Russian Communist Party
which was a monolithic organization, responsible only to its chiefs.
It was in a sense a theoretical question for, by the period of the New
Economic Policy, the Council of Commissars, the Executive Committee
of the Russian Communist Party and the control of the Communist
International rested in the hands of the same men who functioned in
three different capacities but still formed a well-knit body. Even
though the legal relations between Ukraine and Russia rested on the
vague treaties and agreements made during the period of Militant
Communism and the civil wars, the Ukrainian Soviet government could
be practically overruled at any moment and on any point on which it
disagreed with the wishes of Moscow.
Since all non-Communist organizations had been dissolved, the only
possible opposition could come from the Ukapisty, the Ukrainian
Communist Party. This was composed of a small number of brilliant men,
confirmed Communists, who insisted upon preserving the independence of
the Ukrainian Communist regime in the hope that sooner or later they
would be admitted to the Communist International as an independent
national Communist Party. They therefore willingly accepted the
doctrines of the International, which was little more than the third
facet of the ruling block. By 1925 the situation had so far developed
that their aspirations for this were definitely checked and even this
theoretical opposition was eliminated by compelling the Ukapisty to
enter into the Ukrainian Section of the Russian Communist Party, or
else.
This situation makes clear the relations that existed between Ukraine
and Russia during the early years of the New Economic Policy. As
agriculture and industry revived in Ukraine, it was suggested that
the Ukrainian government send aid to its Communist brothers. That
suggestion was a command, and just as the Muscovite bands under
Militant Communism scoured Ukraine for food, so under the New Economic
Policy, the so-called Ukrainian government began to drain off the
wealth of the country for the charitable purpose of helping its Russian
brothers.
The vagueness and the ambiguity of this system was partially cleared
up by the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The
treaty establishing this was signed on December 30, 1922, just as
Lenin was becoming paralyzed and unable to function efficiently. It
bound together the various Soviet Republics, while at the same time
it paid lip service to the right of any of these Republics to secede.
Of course, this was from the beginning an empty phrase, for the only
people who had the power to declare the secession was the Council of
Soviets of the Federal Republic and they were Communists assigned to
their posts by Moscow and bound to obey the orders of the Central
Committee of the Russian Communist Party. In addition to this, a
surprising number of the ruling group of the Russian Soviet Republic
now took over the corresponding posts in the Union and thus added still
a fourth facet to their varied activity.
The Constitution, which was formally adopted at a Union Congress of
Soviets on July 6, 1923, went still further in providing for the
government of the Union. The Commissariats were divided into three
classes: Union, Joint and Republic. Thus, those of Foreign Affairs,
Armed Forces, Foreign Trade, Communications, Water Transport, Posts and
Telegraphs, Heavy Industry, Light Industry, Supply and Timber had full
control over the corresponding sections in the federal republics. Those
of Internal Trade, Labor, Finance and Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection
were nominally joint commissariats but, in case of a dispute between
the Union and the Republic commissariats, the rights of the former were
supreme. The remaining commissariats, Interior, Justice, Education,
Health, Agriculture, and Social Welfare were still left under the
Executive Committee of the Republic Supreme Soviet. It was thus very
evident that, except in a few fields, the powers of the Ukrainian
Soviet Republic to decide its own destiny were practically non-existent.
It goes quite without saying that it was these local commissariats
which attracted the Communists of Ukrainian origin, whether or not they
belonged to the Ukapisty or had joined the Ukrainian Section of the
Russian Communist Party as former members of the Borotbisty. This was
a very important development in the next decade in Ukrainian history
and it was due to the relative freedom of the Commissariat of Education
that the Ukrainian cultural renaissance took the form which it did.
At the same time, despite all the verbiage and the apparent exceptions,
it was abundantly clear from the very beginning that the economic
system of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic was to be bound hand and
foot to the Moscow regime and that its financial and industrial
potentialities would be treated as Moscow wished.
It was relatively simple to deal with industry. The development of
the coal and iron resources of Ukraine were simply transferred to
Moscow control and it was practically impossible for the Ukrainians to
express any opinion as to the form which that development would take.
The Russian directors of the trusts could make such contracts as they
desired and carry them out without regard to the wishes of the local
population or the workmen.
Agriculture was a little more difficult. The decree of 1921, which
had started the New Economic Policy, provided for the payment of a
specific amount of tax in kind and left to the peasant the rest of his
crop. In an endeavor to get this grain into Russia, the government
offered to buy it but it did not have the funds or the inclination to
pay for it at the market price. The financial reforms connected with
the introduction of the chervonets could, to a certain degree, make it
expedient for the peasant to sell to the government for cash, and as
time went on the peasant gained the power of selling his crop for cash
but the Moscow control of transportation and the prohibition of large
scale trading left him helpless and he saw himself forced to dispose of
it locally or to the government. Then the government made a fixed price
which was far below that of the free market, and was often scarcely a
third of the amount that the peasant could have secured. This sale of
large quantities of agricultural products at a fixed price gradually
became the rule and was one of the signs that the period of toleration
for private income was coming to an end.
In 1925, the government began to clamp down on the small traders, the
Nepmen, who had profited by the opportunities which they had had. Again
it had a large choice of measures. Thus, depending on the situation, it
could invoke laws against the hiring of labor; it could order the state
agencies to refuse to buy from or sell to an obnoxious individual and
thus isolate him; it could suspend his ration cards and perquisites,
take away his right of voting and thus make him a pariah in the
community; it could levy prohibitive taxes which would put him out of
business and confiscate his property; or it could find some violation
of some other law or regulation and imprison or exile him.
The degree of pressure which was put upon the peasants and the workers
varied from year to year. Each year Ukraine was compelled to export
more to Russia without regard to the needs of the local population.
Thus, the amount of grain rose from 1,050,000 tons in 1924-5 to
3,165,000 tons in 1926-7, when there was a bumper crop, but in 1927-8,
when the harvest partially failed and there were signs of need in the
country, the amount collected and exported rose to 4,353,000 tons.
At the same time, the continually increasing demands aroused again a
spirit of opposition and of indifference among the peasantry and a
resentment against the growing exactions of the Soviet regime in Moscow.
Still these were years of relative peace. With the introduction of the
New Economic Policy, the government became more tolerant of differences
of opinion and the OGPU (the Organization of the State Political
Administration, the new name for the old Cheka) was relatively
inactive. There were few political arrests, imprisonments, executions
and deportations and the bulk of the population began to breathe more
easily. There were men, however, who saw the straws in the wind. For
example in 1924, Mikhnovsky, who had been one of the early Ukrainian
nationalists, committed suicide and so did Syrotenko, a prominent
Social Revolutionist, but these were in a way exceptional cases.
It is far more likely that this lull was part of the Moscow policy of
preparing to eliminate in one swoop all persons who might prove to be
dangerous, but it was also affected by the confusion and the intrigues
that were going on in Moscow. With the death of Lenin, there was no
clear successor to his post and prestige. There were many claimants,
notably Stalin and Trotsky. When Lenin died, the power passed into
the hands of a small group of leaders with Stalin, the Secretary of
the Communist Party, and Trotsky as Commissar for War as the main
contenders for the supreme power. The struggle between these two
men lasted for several years, with the star of Stalin rising over
that of Trotsky who favored a far more rigorous policy toward both
the Nepmen and traders in the cities and the kulaks or kurkuls (the
richer peasants) who had profited materially by the opportunities for
private trade and production. It was not until that conflict was over
that any one dared to risk the internal upheaval that might come with
a change from the avowed outlines of the New Economic Policy and a
reintroduction of more rigorous socialist or communist practice.
CHAPTER FIVE
Ukrainization
The period of the New Economic Policy was likewise the time when the
movement for the Ukrainization of the state reached its highest point.
This was a complicated political, cultural and scholarly movement which
aimed to develop the Ukrainian self-consciousness in every possible
way and to establish the proper role of the Ukrainian language and
culture in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. It took many and
diverse forms, and while it developed into a definite opposition to
Russian influence and Russian methods, it was not primarily so much an
anti-Communist as an extra-Communist movement, even though most of its
outstanding leaders were tried and tested members of the party.
The basis for the entire movement is to be found in the slight
attraction that Communism as a doctrine possessed for the Ukrainian
people. As late as 1927 there were only 122,928 Ukrainian Communists,
that is, about thirty-nine for each ten thousand of the Ukrainian
population. The bulk of the Communists in Ukraine were Russian and the
vast majority of these belonged to the urban proletariat or to the
workers in the Donets Basin and Kryvy Rih.
The general period of disintegration during the civil war and the
period of Militant Communism had greatly strengthened the power and
self-confidence of the peasants and had weakened the power of the city
workmen. This showed Lenin and the dominant group that some method had
to be found to win at least the passive support of the countryside if
new troubles were to be averted.